(no subject)

Inasmuch as it can be, it is quantified as dark and silent and empty. The edges between things blur. They don't seem to be there most times -- nor is anything else. Imagine the blank forgetfulness of deep sleep, and stretch it endlessly in either direction.

What is there most consistently is a knotted length of cord woven through with wires. Sometimes, more often than the dreams but not with any regularity, the rough rope catches him, and he surfaces, becoming definable again. He can feel the boundaries, touch his fingers to the smooth plastic sheaths covering the wire (green and yellow, though he can't see it), realize who he is and how he got there.

Wash sees the sky -- if only in his mind -- and remembers.

It lasts until the breath he exhales carries him back down, and he slips away, drifting to fill the nothing with more nothing.

Until one breath he draws hurts. He remembers, and it's...

The definition to his arms and legs and self has never been this clear, and when he opens his eyes this time --

There is light.

Light, a solid deafening rumble, and something cold beneath his palms. Wash claps his hands over his ears to block out the noise (this doesn't hurt, but he feels every ridge, every hair, a sharp prickle of heat) and gasps again. There's too much: he has to shut his eyes.

On the kitchen floor of Serenity, back pressed to the wall and legs curled awkwardly to his chest, Wash continues to drag in ragged breaths as he whimpers subaudibly.

The hiss of breath isn't really loud enough to reach outside the kitchen, and Zoe may have battle trained senses, but her attention's on Naomi, and she steps into the kitchen still looking down at the baby.

The contact startles Wash enough to make him try to pull back. But it is startlement; not pain, now. He freezes again except for the steady heaving of his chest.

Then, clumsily, he gropes for the hand resting on his shoulder. It takes a few tries before he can close his own hand around it, pulling it away to rub her fingers like a blind man feeling out an unfamiliar shape.

Slowly, the movement gains more surety. He begins to smile, tiny and utterly relieved.

"It's you," he whispers in awe, and forces himself to raise his head and open his eyes.

Zoe wraps one arm around his shoulders, the other automatically going to adjust Naomi's sling, because the hug (alright, it's more of a cling) that ensues wouldn't be fun to be caught in the middle of.

A real laugh's rather beyond his capabilities at the moment; the noise Wash makes isn't even recognizable as one. He's shivering -- more from the overload than from cold -- as he buries his face in her hair.

He's still watching Naomi. She's grabbed hold of the bracelet tied around his right wrist, with the sort of accuracy she couldn't even approach the last time he saw her. Wash keeps his hand still, letting her tug it, but not teethe it.

It's not any rare thing for anyone on ship to walk to the kitchen at any hour of the day or night.

It's just been awhile since Mal's run into his pilot there, and Mal's eyes narrow at the sight of Zoe and Naomi with the fairhaired man, rubbing at them with fisted hands to make sure he's seeing straight.

Mal moves to the comm near the fore entrance of the kitchen, depressing a button, Doc? Make it to the kitchen. He adds a quick ma shong without any of the frantic tone that phrase normally has carried in the past.

Even with Wash still needing to get checked out and settled back in, it's good to see him, and Mal can't get the grin off his face.

At least he's not wearing one of Wash's gifted shirts today. That might have been awkward.